UK supermarket chain Asda has rolled out a new website which it calls The Brewhouse which is designed primarily to educate its customers about the retailers wide variety of British and international beers.

The microsite has the aim of encouraging Asda customers to sample lesser known brands of beer whilst offering education on various types of lagers, stouts, ales and beers.

The website offers guidance on cooking with beer, matching food to beer, and provides suggestions on suitable beers for specific special occasions such as birthdays and Christmas.

The site features exclusive video content from Ms. Kristy McCready, Brewmaster for Molson Coors who helped Asda develop the site.

Drew Tiffin, buying manager for beers at Asda, said: “There’s a lot of talk about teaching customers about wine but beer is still a very much untapped opportunity in terms of education and encouraging people to drink something a little more unusual whether it be a local beer, or a more niche world product.”

Kristy McCready commented: “It’s fantastic to see Asda taking such an interest in beer education and the Brewhouse is set to change the landscape of online beer purchases.”

“It will improve the online experience, introduce shoppers to a world of different beer style and flavours so they can experiment and find the perfect beer for them and put interest and specialness back into the beer category for Asda shoppers.”

UK retailing giant Asda has become the first supermarket chain in the country to cease offering cheap booze deals, as it seeks to aid efforts in tackling the problem of binge drinking in Britain.

Asda has introduced a minimum price policy at its stores, which means that alcohol cannot be purchased for less than the cost of duty on the product plus VAT.

The new pricing structures establishes a floor price that is applicable to over 99 per cent of the alcohol the retailer sells, and now implies that one litre bottle of Smirnoff vodka cannot be purchased for less than £10.49, whilst a 20-pack of Carling lagers will not be priced below £7.17.

Store managers, however, still have the right to set alcohol prices for damaged or end-of-range products.

Asda chief executive Andy Clarke wrote in a letter to Home Secretary Theresa May said: “It will be Asda’s policy in all our stores not to sell alcohol to the public below the cost of duty plus VAT.”

“I see this as a small but important first step in the process towards creating a new way of selling alcohol in the UK.”

Asda’s decision comes two months after Tesco chief Sir Terry Leahy backed calls for the introduction of minimum pricing on all alcoholic drinks.

Supermarket chain Iceland has come in for heavy criticism for selling cider bottles which contain more than the recommended alcohol allowance for an entire week for just £2.75.

Iceland, which began selling Frosty Jack’s, a cider that contains 22.5 units of alcohol, has come in for heavy criticism by nearly every quarter. Doctors, ministers, crime victims and police chiefs have all voiced criticism over the decision which some have labelled as being ‘deplorable and highly irresponsible’.

Frosty Jack’s is cheaper than a pint down at the pub, and offers drinkers an extremely cheap way to get drunk.

Iceland is not the only retailer to make the cider available with Morrisons, Tesco and Sainsbury’s all heavily criticised for cutting the price of booze such as wine, beer and spirits, which are more often than not, sold extremely cheaply.

Critics in particular have singled out Frosty Jack’s, which they say targets younger drinkers, who can purchase the cider using merely pocket money. The cider which has 7.5 per cent alcohol content, works out to cost 12p per unit.

Iceland has responded by saying that it has only followed the lead set by other retailers. Iceland says it has also reduced the maximum amount of alcohol customers can buy at any one time to 36 litres.

British supermarkets have had accusations levelled against them suggesting that they tend to promote irresponsible alcohol consumption habits by selling booze at cheaper prices than bottled water.

Campaigners have accused retail giants including Tesco, Morrisons and Sainsbury’s of tacit approval of binge drinking, after the retailers were found to be selling beer at a little over 5p per 100 ml, which is 3 pence less than the typical cost of a 100 ml bottle of water.

The campaigners claim that supermarkets encourage binge drinking through the use of cheap alcohol prices to attract customers to their stores, ignoring the health risks that are associated with excessive consumption of alcohol.

Alcohol Concern’s chief executive Don Shenker said that government policy aimed at dealing with binge drinking was being seriously undermined by the price cuts undertaken by retailers.

“Unless they tackle the problem of cheap alcohol, they are fighting a losing battle.The evidence shows young people and harmful drinkers are drawn to very cheap alcohol. Supermarkets sell alcohol at a loss because they know it gets people into the stores. A lot of these sales are irresponsible.” Mr. Shenker said.

A spokeswoman for the British Medical Association added: “It is a real worry that you can buy alcohol cheaper than mineral water. We have a huge problem with alcohol abuse in the UK, so we want a clampdown on these cut-throat price deals.”

Sir Liam Donaldson, the UK’s chief medical officer last month criticised the cheap availability of alcohol at supermarkets, and recommended the introduction of minimum pricing for booze.

Mr. Donaldson suggested that an increase in the average cost of a six pack of beer to £6 or by 50 pence per can, could save as many as 3,400 lives and reduce the number of hospital admissions by as many as 100,00 per year.

The traditional British booze cruise, is slowly being killed off by supermarket chains who are aggressively competing with one another in an ongoing price war.

According to research from industry portal The Grocer, a slumping Pound-Euro exchange rate, and cut price deals from supermarkets has meant that consumers no longer have the incentive they once did to cross the English Channel and stock up on cut price booze, since alcohol is now cheaper at the local supermarket.

British supermarket chains are offering alcohol so competitively priced, that alcohol warehouses on the Calais coast no longer offer the value they once did.

Everything from John Smith Extra Smooth to Smirnoff and Bombay Sapphire is cheaper at UK supermarket then at the Calais branches of the chains. Carlsberg, Fosters and Smirnoff are only marginally more expensive, and when added to the cost of travel, the price difference is negligible and not worthwhile.

A Sainsbury’s spokeswoman said: “We have great value promotions on a number of lines in UK stores so there will be occasions when UK store prices are cheaper than those across the Channel.”

The spokesperson noted that middle class consumers were still making the trip to purchase wine and Champagne, since prices for those products continue to be lower across the border.

Earlier in the year Majestic Wine said it had seen a large fall in trade, with the number of transactions dropping 27 per cent and the average customer spend declining 7 per cent.

Commenting on the findings, a spokesman for The Grocer magazine said: “While the plummeting pound was blamed, it is the depth of below-cost supermarket promotions that have really scuppered the viability of the booze cruise.”

“Factor in the ferry, petrol and time and it becomes clear trips to France just to cram alcohol into every nook and cranny of the car are doomed.”

Asda has some great items on sale this week from every day Christmas items, to mince pies, and booze, with beer, cider, champagne and wine all at very special prices offering great deals. Most items are only on sale till the end of the month, so hurry and get your shopping in whilst prices are everyday low.

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